Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [127]
The assault would begin with a diversionary artillery barrage from forces massing in the west, across the Matanikau River. The main assault, undertaken by the Sendai Division marshaled in the tangled jungle south of Henderson Field, would follow. Still underestimating U.S. troop strength on the island—an intelligence report in late September pegged Vandegrift’s garrison at seventy-five hundred men, well below half its actual number—Hyakutake apparently remained as cocksure of his success as he had been on the day he ordered Colonel Ichiki’s detachment to its slaughter.
From their positions on the west side of the Matanikau River, Japanese heavy artillery began firing on Henderson Field, and the diversionary infantry regiment tried to make its presence known to the Americans. With the preliminaries still under way, Hyakutake’s staff radioed a confident message to 17th Army headquarters at Rabaul: “The victory is already in our hands. Please rest your minds.” He instructed his aides to begin planning for an American surrender.
Words were words. The Japanese Navy wanted deeds. Frustrated by the Army’s delays, and with Yamamoto threatening to haul the fleet back to Truk to refuel if ground commanders didn’t get on with things, Kondo and Nagumo maintained course.
As the Imperial Japanese Army was stalking the jungles surrounding Henderson Field, torrential rains engulfed the island. And then it was over—or so claimed a dispatch that reached the Yamato, moored at Truk, that night. It was after 1:30 a.m. on the twenty-fourth when the telegram was given to Admiral Ugaki as he was meditating by moonlight on the weather deck. It was a dispatch from the 17th Army, proclaiming, “2300 BANZAI!—A LITTLE BEFORE 2300 THE RIGHT WING CAPTURED THE AIRFIELD.” “This settled everything,” Ugaki wrote. He exhorted to his diary, “March, all forces, to enlarge the result gained! Hesitation or indecision at this moment would leave a regret forever.”
And so the fleet pressed on. The announcement of the airfield’s conquest led Vice Admiral Mikawa to send in the light cruiser Yura and several destroyer divisions to blockade the shore and bombard in support of the advancing Imperial Army. Later that morning American planes from Henderson set upon the Yura, the 17th Army’s claim to have captured the airfield notwithstanding. The ship took a bomb from an SBD, as did a destroyer. Later that afternoon another flight of dive-bombers, joined by half a dozen B-17s, let fly against the wounded ship, which had to be scuttled.
Though the Americans had little sense of where the Japanese ground forces were located—the mustering of the Sendai Division had gone undetected by U.S. ground patrols and search planes in the thick jungle south of Lunga Plain—American units were well positioned, with a perimeter divided into five regimental sectors.
General Vandegrift would not be present for the coming assault on his perimeter. Urged by General Thomas Holcomb, the commandant of the Marine Corps—who had picked an inopportune time to inspect Cactus—Vandegrift had traveled to Nouméa to confer with Halsey. General Geiger, Vandegrift’s aviation deputy, took temporary command of U.S. forces on the island.
On the night of October 23–24, the Japanese offensive began with a diversionary attack from the west, across the Matanikau River. American artillery smashed up the leading wedge of tanks. The next night, south of the high ground recently named Edson’s Ridge, just half a mile from the airstrip, elements of the Sendai Division sent two powerful forces at Henderson Field. Each consisted of three rifle battalions, and with three more in